Faith or Facts

so where does faith and say buddhism have its relevance? no deity here but plenty of faith..What about personel faith in your own lifes experiences no deity here...Whats proof? for the faithful its all around them to the agnostic there is none...perspective is wonderful thing...

I don't know that it needs to; are we mixing two concepts which, for the purposes of the question at hand - are like square holes and round blocks? I fear that may be the case.

I can only offer that I think it important to keep these two elements in their proper perspective. One needn't contain any portion of the other to have worth; two different tools for two different purposes.

Good luck - I hope someone offers up something that helps.

Thanks

Icon,

Your point is well taken; and you're quite right that these are concepts which need to be taken in the framework of the questions-at-hand. My gentle caution is basically this: Because we use terms whose meaning lie at the basis of any philosophical point-of-view, such terms must necessarily exist - as much as is possible - in the minds of the parties involved as having a common meaning; at least to that extent to which this is possible. In this thread's case, I believe they're divergent enough to warrant the caution that any solution doesn't necessarily have to be an either/or proposition.

And yes; semantic quibbling isn't a very savory part of the debate process, but whatever label we apply to the process, the establishment of common meaning and context of the terms involved, is both necessary and prudent (or that is how I see it).

Again, good clarifications and Thanks

I completely agree that a common meaning should be found and agreed upon but that does not necessarily require a semantics conversation. I am a professional business coach and my specialty is business communication. One of the hardest parts of my lessons is getting my customer to understand that it is the responsibility of the communicator to state things in a way which is understandable.

Those who are deep strive for clarity. Those who wish to appear deep to the crowd strive for obscurity. The crowd is too timid to cross water which it cannot see the bottom. ~Nietzsche

If you feel that there might be an issue with the semantics of a word or words then it is your responsibility as a communicator to highlight the meaning as you see it. This will continue the conversation and clearly state your views without diverting attention to perspective meaning.

I am not saying that I do this all the time but I live in a town where this sort of discussion occurs on the regular and I often find myself getting far off topic to discuss meaning or definition and this has proven to be the most viable and rational way to avoid the issue.



Buddhism has MANY dieties my friend. Jade emperor, heavenly bodies, buddisatvas (sp?). Now, if you are speaking on the philosophy of buddhism then you are correct. No dieties, but that would not fit in this section either. I am VERY familiar with this as I was a buddhist for many years and had to weed through philosophical vs. religious buddhism. Faith in experience is based on evidence or the diety of science. Because you have witnessed something time and again, you have faith that it will happen in a certain way. In this way, it is a fact which has yet to be written.

"According to the Dharma there are three different kinds of faith. The first can be described as a longing or a wish that what you hope and believe to be true actually is true. The second is described as a lucid faith in which you conclude that what you believe to be true actually is true. The third kind of faith is unshakable faith, which is total conviction." (Lama Suryadas, Awakening the Budha Within)

After this faith can only be abandoned for knowledge.

Icon - I'm afraid I cannot agree that philosophy and religion are somehow at odds within Buddhism. I would rather say that Buddhism is not a philosophy or a religion in the most common meaning of these words.

By the way, you might like a sign I once saw on a manager's desk, which read, 'The trouble with communication is thinking it happened.' I think this says it all.

Whoever

[quote=Icon]
Buddhism has MANY dieties my friend. Jade emperor, heavenly bodies, buddisatvas (sp?). Now, if you are speaking on the philosophy of buddhism then you are correct. No dieties, but that would not fit in this section either. I am VERY familiar with this as I was a buddhist for many years and had to weed through philosophical vs. religious buddhism. Faith in experience is based on evidence or the diety of science. Because you have witnessed something time and again, you have faith that it will happen in a certain way. In this way, it is a fact which has yet to be written.[/quote]

Bodhisattvas are not deities. The Jade Emperor is from Chinese mythology, not from Indian or Tibetan Buddhism, though the concept has crept in to Buddhism in China due to that country's remarkable ability to synthesize spiritual traditions.

Buddhism has many factions, just as christianity or any other religion. But again, these are all faith based.

FACTS, n. My Perspective.
FAITH, n. Your's.
-Book of Fudd (26:66)

Right, Buddhism is a diverse religion but I'm not familiar with any Buddhist sect that considers Bodhisattvas to be deities.

Buddhism does have many deities, but these gods are quite different from God in other traditions. Buddhist gods are caught up in samsara just like humans and all other sentient beings.

Buddhism, neither a religion or a philosophy. My thoughts are, like everything else we use in order to understand ourselves and the world we live in, it can either be a tool or a crutch, depending on how you choose to use it.

Buddhism is a religion, and Buddhism has a rich tradition of philosophy. These are not mutually exclusive. Really is a remarkable faith tradition.

Faith vs Fact. Faith is a guess, fact is a constant.

I suspect that without faith there are no facts.

What do you mean?

Say there is a bird sitting outside my window. It is a fact that a bird is sitting outside my window. But then the bird flies off. The fact is not constant - a bird is not always sitting outside my window.

Faith as a guess also seems problematic. I can guess that you are holding an Ace without having faith that you hold an Ace.

You believe it is a fact that there is a bird sitting outside your window. As you might be dreaming, hallucinating, in the Matrix etc., and as scepticism is always possible, you can say no more than this.

There may not always be a bird on your window but from now until eternity, there WAS a bird on your window. Constant.


Hallucinations, matrix... blah blah blah. The Fact of the matter is that we can speculate the finer details until we are blue in the face but if I can see the bird and you can see the bird then the bird MUST be there because we both see the bird.

MITech said:



This question is a logical fallacy: The Either Or Fallacy. It impliest that something is inherently Either one way Or it is inherently the other way - with no inbetween.

With this in mind, I am curious as to why you feel that being a theist and believing in science are mutually exclusive?

I believe in both.

Icon - I have some sympathy with your impatience with philosophy. But this is a philosophy forum.

Oh I understand. And I certainly enjoy the conversation. That was not at all my point. My point is that we must take some thing for face value. Otherwise, we have absolutely no truth. Without truth, we have no basis for conversation. I could easily say that this is all a result of my comatose dream and no one could refute it. No one could dis-prove it. I was merely showing that the conversation was trailing off of topic as many do. Faith or fact, not the foundation of fact, is the topic.

Hi all...

I see everything we do as an act of faith, since nothing is known with absolute certainty. Everything we believe, wether it be in the empirical world around us, math, religion,etc., is believed because give faith to various sources of belief. (source of belief = experiential reason to believe) It would be very difficult for any of us to believe something that had absolutely no credible (to us) reason to believe. These sources of belief could be physical experience, logical reasoning, input from other people, "hunches", or anything else that makes an idea feel credible to us.

Each of us as individuals gives our faith to these different sources in every act we do or decision we make. Even such fundamental beliefs like "object permanence" are taken on faith in our senses and memory, even though we often forget that this is, in the end, still faith (belief).

A "faith crisis" happens when an individual faces two conflicting ideas, both of which have sources of belief that feel credible to that individual. It's at times like these when people actually start thinking about "faith".

For example, the first time a man flies in an airplane he is having faith that the airplane will take him where he needs to go rather than fall out of the sky and kill him. Both ideas have sources of belief that feel credible: On one hand, he's seen planes fly and people have told him they're safe. On the other hand, he knows from experience that things in the air generally fall down, and reasons that falling from such a height would kill him. He had to choose which source(s) of belief I put his faith in.

So to me faith is not a matter of believing that which has no source of belief, it is a matter of choosing which source I'm going to believe.

Hope that made sense, it feels poorly writen, but it's the best I could do at the moment. :whistling: